Premier League Match 32 - Southampton 0 Aston Villa 3

Save Two Penalties, Still Lose 3-0

There is an element of new beginning about today’s game against Aston Villa. First of all, we had the news in the aftermath of the Tottenham game that confirmed our relegation, that Ivan Juric would be leaving the club.  Ivan had some redeeming features, namely his honesty and he seemed like a decent guy but fucking hell… he was useless. No idea about English football and just did not adapt quick enough to what was glaringly obvious.  His attempt to implement a style of play that was never going to work with the players that he had, was particularly special, and even though he was doomed to relegation from the start, he didn’t make a particularly good fist of trying to make any sort good impression. There was always a bit of a ‘supply teacher’ vibe about him and now, the supply teacher king is dead, long live the caretaker king. Well, for seven games anyway.

Simon Rusk has once again been put in caretaker charge, only this time he has a new assistant in the shape of Adam Lallana, who will be taking up his first coaching position. Rusk proved in his one game so far, away at Fulham, that he is all about setting up a solid team and hopefully Lallana’s will add some sort of attacking plan to the proceedings. I am however, half expecting Lallana to get injured getting out of his car and being unable to take his place in the technical area for the actual game.  Rusk made mention of that Fulham game in his press conference, in that we have to be hard to beat. It’s all very well having that intention, as long as you’ve got something else should you go one behind, which if this season is anything to go by, we probably will at some point?

Juric Six Months Ago, before He Became Saints Manager

Villa are not the easiest of opponents to be playing today. We are fortunate in a way that they are involved in the Champions League Quarter-final having played the first leg against PSG a few days ago and having the return in the middle of next week. Being 3-1 down after the first leg, they are going to have to throw the complete kitchen sink at it in the return, to have any chance at Villa Park. Unai Emery though, is nothing but the master of the one-off game, so don’t count them out.

Villa are another one of the recent batch of clubs who have done some PSR manoeuvring in order to build up their squad, swapping an unheard of youngster with the similarly financially up against it Everton, for relatively stupid money.  Pure profit on the sale and a relatively small outlay when amortised over the length of the contract.  It’s shit, but their squad is now ridiculously strong. In their last league game against Nottingham Forest, they had Matty Cash, Lucas Digne, Pau Torres, Ezri Konsa, John McGinn, Jacob Ramsey and Marcus Rashford… all on the fucking bench and they still managed to beat the team in third place in the Premier League this season.  If there are any weaknesses in the Villa team then you would have to look at the central defenders but in order to look at them, we have to get somewhere near them.

Today’s team saw slight surprises in that Fernandes partners Big Les in midfield and there is a place for Cameron Archer, for some reason.  Hopefully Rusk has seen something that no one else has.  There’s a place on the bench for Jay Robinson, which is thoroughly deserved after his recent performances for the Under 21s.  Villa have rotated a few but it’s Rashford for Watkins and stuff like that.  It’s laughable really.

Saints game plan is obviously going to be to keep things tight and we are doing precious little attacking in the opening few minutes as Villa pass the ball around in our half in front of us. Our first break comes with Fernandes and Big Les breaking up the play in the middle of the park with Les sending KWP away and Archer Makes a good run from inside Mings and fastens onto KWP’s perfectly weighted ball. Archer takes a touch too wide and has a choice of picking out Tall Paul at the back post or drilling it at the goal but in the end does neither and his half hit shit cross and shot hybrid is easily cleared by the diving Martinez.

The pattern of the game remains unchanged however with Villa probing around the edge of the penalty area with crosses into the box being headed away until one goes out to Asensio on the right and his cross into the mixer is nodded down and Tielemans looks like he’s going to get an effort on goal from an angle but Ramsdale comes flying out to block.

Again our game plan is kind of working as Lesley breaks up Villa once again in the middle of the park and finds Archer who feeds out right to KWP, who works himself a yard before slinging across to the back post to where Tall Paul comes flying in, but he can only head the ball into the side netting and smash himself into the advertising board.

There’s a maginally interesting incident just before half time as Archer goes for a cross from Manning and ends up tangling with Konsa.  Play goes on upfield and Konsa grabs Archer’s shirt and there are brief handbags.  Hmmm.  I mean, that doesn’t get given as a penalty but when you think about, it really could be given.

Half time and there’s not been much action to talk about.  Villa are getting frustrated with lots of flopping to the floor and appealing to the very obliging Thomas Bramall and we are digging in well.  It’s ok but purely because it’s 0-0 so the end result has justified the means but it is only 45 minutes.

The previously limping Tall Paul doesn’t appear for the second half and on comes Dibling with Archer moving into a central stirker role where there will be defenders and all that shit he doesn’t like.

The second half starts it must the same vein as the first with Villa having all the play and after a couple of half clearances and Onana lines one up from 30 yards and drills across goal towards the far post but Ramsdale beats it away quite comfortably.  Villa are getting closer though with Rashford beating Archer’s laughable attempt to shield the ball and making his way along the byline before pulling the ball back to no one. From the next cross into the box, Bednarek rises highest, and it comes off the back of his head and goes narrowly over the bar.

Rusk then does something fucking mystifying with Smallbone coming on for Sulemana and Ross Stewart for Archer. This means Smallbone going into the midfield and Fernandes going out to the left-wing.  It seems mental and within a minute it’s proved to be mental, as Smallbone’s shit touch plays KWP into the shit against two players. Smallbone compounds his error and  jogging past KWP thinking he’s going to be magically beat the two players up his arse to get the ball to him somehow, but of course we lose it and then we are short of bodies in midfield - one ball into the box by Maatsen and Bednarek goes trashing through Watkins and that’s the clearest penalty you will ever see.  Fuck sake.

A Rare Glimpse of Something Positive

All that work to be completely undone but not yet as Ascensio takes the penalty and Ramsdale springs to his left to push it away.   One of the highlights of the season right there.  Crap penalty to be fair, but we get a life.  However, before we can get used to having a life, Mings gives the balls to Tielemans just inside Saints half and no one presses him, which is a really great idea against an experiences international playmaker.  This allows him to chip the ball over the top to meet the run of Watkins and Watkins sticks out a foot and brilliantly diverts it over Ramsdale, off the bar and bouncing down into the net. Fuck off. Brilliant goal but bloody hell.

The Saints press is now of course fucked and once again it doesn’t work as Smallbone goes chasing on his own and two passes and Les is on his own in midfield and Villa play through us and Rogers finds Malen on the right and he drills it across Ramsdale to kill the game off at 2-0.  Excellent efficiency of finishing by Villa but absolutely shit from us and all over the place.

Sugawara is on for Manning because of the clause that he’s obviously got his contract, but he wins a corner which is headed out as far as Fernandes who drills it through the crowd and Martinez is forced into a save. Sugawara’s resulting cross from the rebound is headed wide by a defender who the referee mistakes for THB and gives a goal kick.

89 minutes and on comes Jay Robinson for his debut for Fernandes and another Villa attack with the ball bouncing about and Stephens trashes through the back of McGinn and that’s a penalty as well.  Watkins wants it of course but it’s Asensio again and it’s same again, carbon copy shit penalty and Ramsdale saves again but this time, no one follows it in apart from McGinn, who runs it into an empty net. Ramsdale is fucking furious and absolutely deservedly so.

Well that was a game of two benches.  They bring on three players who all score and we succeed only in making our team progressively weaker and today was a classic case of proving that we should not make substitutions when the starter is still able to move.  Simon Rusk made the same mistake that Russell Martin and Ivan Juric have made before him in not recognizing the importance of the midfield to the defensive effort and not realising the glaring limitations of some of our players.

For an hour, our set up had frustrated Villa, and we were looking good for a goalless draw, until we took Matty Fernandes out of the central midfield.  His partnership with Big Les had played a major part in restricting Villa and no change was necessary in that vital area of the pitch.  The second part of he equation was of course bringing on Will Smallbone to play in a midfield two.  How much evidence do these highly paid football people need to come to the conclusion that HE CAN’T FUCKING DO IT!!! It took about two minutes for a bad touch to put KWP in the shit and give the ball away which led directly to the first penalty, which of course we got away with as Rambo saved from Asensio.  A few minutes later and Tielemans has the time that he’s not had all game to chip the ball over the defence that Watkins volleyed in.  Straight after that the game is dead with Smallbone trying to win the ball too high up the pitch, getting turned and not being able to get back as Villa simply play Malen in, bang, 2-0.
Sixty minutes of good defensive work undone by bringing on the substitutes and changing the foundation of the defensive effort.

It really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone at this stage.  It’s almost the same as putting Ryan Fraser in goal– you are putting an unsuitable player in there and guess what, that area of the team is vital.  Once again, you can’t play Smallbone in a two-man midfield, you can’t really play Aribo in a two-man midfield but here we are. Everyone tries it and it never fucking works and it was obvious last season that it would never fucking work but still we do it. I know Will is a nice lad and he’s one of our own but for fuck‘s sake, you are asking him to do something that he just cannot do. It’s not Will’s fault, it’s yours and Will gets hung out to dry every fucking time and today it undid all the hard work and all the work that was done on the training around during the week.

Jay Makes His Debut - Shame Most of the Crowd Missed It

A word for Aaron Ramsdale who was again completely powerless for every goal that went past him and to save two penalties and still lose 3-0 just about sums his season up.  The dereliction of duty from the defenders to allow McGinn to get to the rebound from the penalty save in the 93^rd minute was particularly shit and not backing up your team mates whatsoever. There were some good performances before we went behind, with Jack Stephens being the pick of the defenders and the aforementioned Fernandes doing some excellent work defensively.  It was nice to see Jay Robinson get some minutes at the end as well, just a shame that like with the second penalty save, there were only about 15,000 in the ground to see it.

A predictable on the negative side was Cameron Archer.  Coming in from the wings is probably his best position and one that I was keen to see him in once up on a time, but not anymore.  The lazy bastard was given an undeserved start and rewarded the manager with a performance which involved about two runs into space all game and little making himself available and just general cluelessness with anything involving not having the ball at his feet.  Absolutely petrified of any contact from defenders, doesn’t shield the ball and no idea on linking play. Absolutely none of it. Tall Paul was clearly not fit and he’s clearly a player who needs to be 100% fit to take the pitch, or else there really isn’t much going on. Ross Stewart played half an hour and looked as rusty as you would expect a rusty player to look who had been caked in rust for three years.

So whilst we were solid until the substitution from hell, we offered nothing much going forward, struggling to string together even a couple of passes with any regularity.  In the first half we worked a couple of good crossing positions for Manning, who then skidded the crossover about six inches off the ground instead of trying to pick out the fucking giant Centre forward we’ve got.  On the other side, Archer had a glorious chance to find Paul for a tap in but instead picked out the goalkeeper and Fernandes, whenever we took out time from defending, wasted a couple of breaks passing the ball straight to defenders instead of into the gap to allow KWP to run onto it. 

Referee Thomas Bramhall was predictably fucking hopeless being as he was, the referee in our fiasco up at Wolves earlier on in the season. Ridiculously uneven handling of the first half, when Villa were basically allowed to dive about and get every decision go their way.  I have no issue however, with either of the penalty decisions.  Neither challenge took out the Villa player with the tackling leg, but the back leg trashed Watkins and McGinn respectively on the follow through.  Always going to get given.

If we are to pick up the two points that we need to not be the worst team in Premier League history, then Simon Rusk and Adam Lallana need to find a way for us to have more goal threat, as keeping it tight will only get you so far. This isn’t going to be easy, given the shower of shit that we have at the top end of the pitch, but we all knew the game was dead once we went behind today.

Overall, as said though it was a game of two benches.  Their squad is amazing right down to the twentieth player and ours stops at about ten, on a good day.  They were always going to be too strong for us but we don’t help ourselves, and the positives are that we were decent for just over an hour and that this is one more game ticked off in this godforsaken season.  Next up is West Ham away, who have moved into the ‘Worst of the Rest’ position of 17^th in the table.  Lose that and Leicester will probably go down next weekend but we of course have our own targets.

6 games to go, 2 points needed.

Premier League Match 31 - Tottenham 3 Southampton 1

 

Rambo and Janny about to lead the Lap of Defecation

A Team Photo For the Ages

With Wolves winning against Ipswich yesterday, Saints go into this game away at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium knowing that defeat will mean mathematical relegation. Apparently, a week 31 relegation will be the earliest anyone has ever been relegated from the Premier League. We are fucking massive.  I was watching local TV last night and the presenter mentioned that all the pressure was on Saints in this game.  As if it makes any difference – I’ve known we were going down from about October.

Spurs are currently only one place above Wolves in the table, such as been their struggle this season under Ange Postecoglou.  This week, after another defeat, he described himself as a lone voice supporting Tottenham and that he could do with some promonent Spurs support from the media.  As if that’ll make any difference to losing loads of games.  He’s also on his own when it comes to trying to make Tottenham any better because he gets fuck all help from Daniel Levy.  Levy will no doubt relief another manager of his duties at the end of the season and in fact, lose to us and it might well happen even earlier.  Postecoglou’s inevitable departure, whenever it is, will be yet another manager who’s been successful elsewhere who has gone to Spurs and died on his arse. I’m sure even the most hard-of-thinking Spurs fan will know by now that it doesn’t matter who the fuck is managing the club whilst Levy is there.  I guess they’re all waiting for the day here either retires or dies.   In Levy’s time, they managed to have a 30 goal season striker for about ten years in Harry Kane and didn’t manage to even get close to winning the Premier League title. The closest they got was actually the year that Leicester won it in 2016, when Spurs ended up finishing third and the two horse race.

Postecoglou appears to be one of these modern breed of managers who only has one way of playing and if Plan A doesn’t work, then we move on to Plan A with slightly different players. They will press high and have a high defensive line and whilst this doesn’t really work any more against decent sides, it will probably be too much for us.  We certainly couldn’t deal with it when they came to St Mary’s earlier on in the season and what turned out to be Russell Martin’s last game in charge as Spurs stuck five past us by half time when our method of coping with the Spurs press was to not do any running.  Ange was under pressure going into that game as well but a 5-0 away win does tend to keep the wolves from the door for a short while at least.

Some Spurs players have been coming under fire this season, especially the likes of Son Heung Min, who has been one of the best players in the Premier League for about ten years. I keep hearing about him being finished but anyone who bothers to look up his goal scoring record against Southampton will be expecting him to get on the score sheet today.  He’ll probably have a big fucking dive at some point as well.  Brennan Johnson has been in the rumour mill as well for allegedly deciding that someone who has just had a hundred blokes run through her, was girlfriend material.  The injury crisis that Spurs have been shitting on about all season, has now abated so we should see a more or less first-choice team. 

Our defiance of relegation for another week hinges on who is going to be available for this game and Ivan Juric’s pre-match press conference reported that whilst Ryan Manning and big Les have recovered from their knocks against Palace, Tall Paul is a doubt. So, it looks like we’re going to have to make at least two changes with Flynn Downs and Tall Paul probably being replaced with Joe Aribo and Cameron Archer which if it comes to pass, will take us from a competent team down to a shit one…. and that’s before we start bringing on substitutes.

As it turns out, the predictions were correct and it was Archer and Aribo, though strangely, Tall Paul was on the bench.  Ivan has changed the formation as well with Dibling coming in for Jack Stephens, so it looks like a variation of 4-5-1.

Away we go and the plan that we’ve clearly been sent out there with is ‘Do fuck all’, which we carry out to the letter as Spurs knock it around with no danger of a challenge ever coming in.  Ten minutes of that and Ramsdale pulling off a superb point blank save from a bullet Romero free header from six yards and we have our first attack with KWP and Dibling combining well up the right and the latter picking out Sulemana at the back post and his volley flicks off of Porro’s foot, hits the post and comes out.  Having all got nosebleeds from actually putting together an attack, we then don’t bother with getting back and Spurs play it simply down the left and Spence overlaps and then gets his head up and cuts it back and Lily Phillips 101^st dick of the day slams it into the roof of the net.

There’s no reaction unless you count sticking to the original ‘do fuck all’ game plan.  Spurs pass a free kick wide to Porro who slings in a cross and once more, Romero meets it and this time Ramsdale saves it with his face.  Joe Aribo in particular is carrying out the ‘Do Fuck all’ plan  with great care and diligence, jogging about in midfield.  His other job apart from jogging about is to mark Romero at set pieces and that’s going predictably well as the Argentine wins another header from a corner and heads across to where Bergvall swings a leg and mis-kicks it past Ramsdale for 2-0 but we’re off to VAR.

Hi there Michael, Stockley Park here – we have a potential offside situation

OK, talk me through it

Well it’s like this… we know that semi-automated offside tech is coming and we don’t want it

Why not?

Cos it’s gonna make our job less important

Is it?

Yes, and it’s going to make it more difficult for PGMOL to you know… control things.

OK, I get it that you're hurting, but hurry up we need a decision

Not so fast Michael… Ange slagged us off last week so we’re going to make the twat wait.

[4 minutes go by]

Hi Michael, we want to give it because it’s Spurs at home to Southampton but it’s offside.

Well why don’t you say it’s not offside… no one cares any more, after this long.

Because it won’t matter a shit cos Saints are shite and they'll chuck in another goal in a few minutes.

Why the fuck did that take over five minutes.  I also get the impression that they just guessed at it in the end.  Ultimately it won’t matter a shit and sure enough, a powder puff challenge from Bednarek and Spurs get away down our left and in comes the cross which is headed out by Fernandes.  THB gets bodied out of the way by Solanke and the ball bounces up for Maddison to head on and Johnson pokes it in, whilst Manning, Bednarek and Big Les all look at the sky with seemingly no idea that there was any danger.  Johnson does like an easy poke into a wide-open goal.

Half time and no changes because what’s the point really.  Positional change though as Aribo and Fernandes look to have swapped, presumably to get Aribo out of midfield and into an area where his jogging about will be less damaging.

Weirdly, Saints are the better team in the opening ten minutes, which shows how average this Spurs team are when faced with anyone putting in any effort.  All of a sudden, there is a bit of intent and some hard work. Zero composure around box however as we work a nice crossing position for Manning, which he shells into the Spurs fans behind the goal in fucking useless fashion. More of the same as Sulemana brilliantly skips past Porro and then wafts the cross straight to the goalkeeper.

Smallbone and Welington coming on for Manning and Aribo as we do a like for like at left back and the midfield engine room gets bolstered by another player who has no engine.  The shambles amongst the lesser players then infects Ramsdale as he pulls off a good low save from Solanke and then tries to reclaim the ball on the left of the penalty area and slides out of the box with it, comically trying to palm the ball back into the box.  No yellow card because the referee is an idiot.  Maddison then decides against tackling Fernandes and instead, pulls out a kind of forearm smash and that’s not a booking either.  The free kick is curled in from Fernandes, but there is no desire to attack the ball from anyone.

70 minutes gone and Ivan feels the need to furnish us with one of his amazing substitutions, so off comes Dibling, who has had a much better game than of late, and on comes Sugawara, who I’m beginning to think must have some sort of clause in his contract.  Archer is also put out of his misery and replaced with Tall Paul, who looks even more immobile than usual.

In truth, we have been the better side all of the second half and Spurs have been useless.  If we weren’t shit, it would feel like if we got one, we could well get a second but with so little commitment and intent in attacking areas, we are never gonna score.  This might help though… bloody hell it’s Ross Stewart on for Big Les, which means we have one more striker on now, and no midfield.

89 gone and Sulemana crosses to the back post and Fernandes has got in there and he controls on his chest and fires under Vicario to mean that we only need two more goals in about three minutes and seven consecutive wins and other games to all go our way, to stay up.  With 6 foot 3 Ross and 6 foot 7 Paul in there though, I’m sure we’ll be launching balls up there.

Nah, instead of that we do fuck all except allow a Spurs attack when sole midfielder Fernandes loses the ball and though he’s going nowhere, Welington dives in on Johnson, who goes over and Welington fires an “I’m completely fucking guilty and that’s a penalty” look at the referee.  19-year-old on-loan sub Tel, doesn’t let Johnson go for his hat-trick and though Rambo gets a touch, he can’t keep it out.

Ivan looking Forward to His Next Meeting with Johannes

And so the predictable relegation is confirmed and I’m not even bothered because I’ve known since October/November. I can still be bothered about this game though because that first half was as pathetic as it gets with no one willing to put a challenge in and a game plan that simply seem to involve standing off as the only feature of it. The defending on both of the goals was horrific, particularly the second one where three out of our four defenders - the ones paid to defend our goal - all acted like there was no danger present when Johnson scored.

Tottenham have one good header of the ball and that’s Romero and we let him have three free headers in the first half, two of which were brilliantly kept out by Ramsdale and the third one led to Bergvall’s disallowed goal which was offside more by luck the judgement on our part. In the second half it was a different game because we showed how ordinary this Spurs team is by keeping the ball and playing with a little bit of intensity through midfield. The intensity only went as far as the midfield though because we pushed Joe Aribo further forward to support Archer, so we actually had some midfielders who are willing to run.  There was no intensity up front of course with those two, however.  There was the occasional input from Sulemana and Dibling from the wings.  We should’ve sensed a chance to get back into it on about the hour mark and really gone for it but of course we didn’t and didn’t get the goal back until the 89th minute. Even if we’d given ourselves ten minutes to get an equaliser it could have been different as the crowd had turned and Spurs looked there for the taking but of course we give away another one with a brain-dead bit of defending by Welington who jumped in on Johnson, probably didn’t touch him but made it look incredibly like he was guilty of something. Not sure where VAR was but the referee Michael Salisbury was always going to give it.

I know it ultimately doesn’t matter but what the fuck was the referee on today. Unbelievable inconsistency all the way through and shit for both teams. That little Bergvall shit in midfield for Spurs, sliced KWP in half in the first half to cynically stop an attack and didn’t get booked, leaving him to commit about three more fouls and deliberate handball.  Lesley Ugochukwu got booked for a minor shirt pull however, which is the same cynical stopping of an attack but without any violence.  Ramsdale not getting booked for handball outside his box does not make up for it.  Absurd refereeing.

Because I don’t have a direct hot line into the brain of Ivan Juric, I have no idea why he changed from the relatively solid defensive system that we employed against Palace and went with a back four today. Maybe it was to match up what Spurs do but he has not really shown any indication that he was going to do that until today. Flynn Downes became a better player through not playing today because you could see the stark difference with the lack of energy and lack of intensity in midfield in that first half in particular. Joe Aribo had a maximum speed of about 3 miles an hour and his average speed was the same. Lazy bastard.  Big Les didn't look fit and was hampered by the one yellow card that Michael Salisbury decided to give out.  Mind you, there's no defensive system int he world that can function with THB, Bednarek and Manning putting in the performances they put in today.  The odd good moment for each but as we all know, defending is about consistency.

Matty Can't Wait to Get The Fucking Horrible Shirt Off

On the positive side, Matty Fernandes again showed a massive amount of energy and commitment and it’s a testament to him that in this shit show of a season, and his first season in English football, he has not allowed his head to drop or standards to slip. I only hope we can hold onto him for next season but ironically performances like today’s won’t help. Tyler Dibling was a surprise selection to start but he had his best game for the past couple of months and was always looking to get involved.  As I said, there was the odd flash from Sulemana on the left, but he is the proverbial jigsaw in that he falls apart in the box.

So, relegation confirmed after 31 games for the first time for anyone, ever.  No one will remember that though but they will remember the lowest points tally ever, which we are of course one point shy of.  We’re not getting it in our next game either which is Villa at home.  Today was a pathetic performance which kind of summed up the season and the remaining seven games, particularly the four at St.Marys are going to be played in a surreal atmosphere now that relegation is confirmed.  Ivan Juric paid tribute to the fans today who stayed and clapped the team for their ‘effort’ today.  He’s right, the travelling fans are magnificent and those players, with a couple of exceptions, don’t deserve them.

Up the Fucking Saints Fans.

Premier League Match 30 - Southampton 1 Crystal Palace 1

 

Big Striker on Pitch, Cross the Ball, Goal - Football is a Simple Game

After a glorious undefeated two-and-a-half weeks since our last game, comes the visit of Crystal Palace to St Mary’s. In recent years has gone by, a game against Palace was always be seen as an opportunity for three points because even if they were better than us in any given season, they were never that much better and there was always the opportunity for JWP to get under Wilfred Zaha’s skin And for Palace not to perform. How things have changed. It would be a major shock if Saints do anything other than lose to Palace today with the relevant trajectories of the two clubs. Since they got over their dodgy start the season, Palace have been in excellent form and have won their last six away games without conceding a goal. Saints have a similar streak in home games but we’ve lost the fucking lot usually, so law will be working down on this game and predicting a Saints win but somehow, I don’t think so.

Palace’s recovery in the second half of the season has coincided with an FA Cup run which on Saturday saw them reach the semi-final at the expense of Fulham. It was a game where Palace didn’t have much possession but when they got some, they were deadly with it with Eze, fresh from scoring his first goal for England a few days before, scoring a brilliant first goal which showed Palace being everything that we are not - direct, incisive and with players with the ability to go past people and having a bit of that ‘end product’ thing never goes amiss. The front three of Eze, Sarr and Mateta are the envy of most in the league and you would be hard pressed to find a better front three much better, anywhere in the division and there are some of the super league clubs who would certainly be better if they had those three Palace attackers instead of what they got.  I’m looking at you Spurs, Manchester United, Chelsea and probably even Arsenal.

It’s not just the attack though. The midfield boasts the excellent pairing of Jefferson Lerma and Adam Walton who is surely destined to go on and have a long England career. At the back they have current England International Mark Guehi and Dean Henderson in goal is not too shabby either. They will face a summer of vultures circling for their top players and it has to be remembered that they lost Michael Olise to Bayern Munich last summer but have still thrived. They are the perfect example of doing it right.

Meanwhile, in our camp, Ivan Juric highlighted the importance in his pre-match press conference of not finishing as the worst Premier League team of all time. Talk about lofty ambitions. Well Ivan, if you are as fucking woeful as you have been so far, then I’d say it’s a game on.  Infuriatingly, he also repeated the mantra that you have to decide on a style of play and then sign players accordingly. Yeah, that’s the long-term view you fucking arsehole but that doesn’t really work if you can’t sign any players and you come into the team mid-season. Every time he opens his mouth, I just want him to shut the fuck up.  Again I’m pondering the age old adage that the manager sets the tone for the team and the team reflects the managers personality. That probably explains why the current state of our team is “meh”.

More usefully he did give a fitness update and Will Smallbone is out but James Bree, Jan Bednarek and THB are all fit and available. I have in my mind an eleven for this game and a formation and I think that the further that we deviate from that, the worse we will be. Needless to say, my formation has a striker in it, it doesn’t have a back three and it doesn’t contain James Bree or any of the other painfully Championship players that we have littered around the squad.

A highlight of many a recent Saints experience is the team announcement, when you can usually decide if there’s going to be any chance of anything positive happening.  Having had the long break, the question was if Ivan Juric had spent the time actually learning anything about his players and there was a cautious thumbs up, when the eleven names became apparent.  The headline for me was Flynn Downes starting alongside Lesley Ugochukwu, which gave hope that the midfield wouldn’t be shit.  Full backs on the correct sides in KWP and Manning and praise the lord above (if you believe in all that), a striker in Tall Paul.

Away we go in front of a relatively sparse crowd.  There are so many visible gaps in all four stands as the combination of an evening kick-off and being shite have made up a lot of peoples minds for them.  Palace work the ball out to Mitchell on the left and he fizzes one into Mateta, who spins past Bednarek and accelerates into space and from 20 yards he fires it it over Ramsdale and we are collectively waiting for the net to bulge… but it hits the bar and bounces down. Fuck me that was close and that would’ve shredded the atmosphere at a stroke.

We begin to grow into the game soon after and Tall Paul holds it up for KWP to burst through the middle but he can’t get a shot away and the ball bounces out to Big Les, who runs at the edge of the box and it pings around a bit before Les lays it back to Fernandes whose shot deflects over for a corner. positive stuff.  Ok, it’s just a corner but we had four players in the box.

Twenty minutes and Fernandes finds Downes and some lovely one touch between THB Downes and Fernandes and the one we desperately want to keep next year, gets his head up and curls a lovely cross onto the forehead of the big man and Tall Paul heads powerfully down in Henderson can only help it into the net. Fuck me, we are winning. The Northam are absolutely on fire with their chants of “We are staying up”, which drew a generous round of applause from the Palace fans as we fly up the ‘As It Stands’ table and we’re now just the 17 points adrift.

Saints Celebrate Flying Up the 'As it Stands' Table.

The Palace response is for Eze to skip across the pitch to the right and find Clyne and his low ball into Mateta sees the big man spin once more and fire in a shot through two defenders and Ramsdale seems to twist in mid-air and pulls off a tremendous safe down low to his left.

Saints finish the half the stronger though as THB chips it down the right wing to where Guehi gets there before Fernandes but the England man fucks up and plays a shit ball across towards Lacroix, but Tall Paul tries to take it first time and drags it wide.

KWP steps in an wins a  tackle to allow Fernandes to break through midfield and he drops his shoulder and is gone past Lerma and Wharton before finding KWP, who has continued his run and his low ball across is too far in front of Tall Paul. The ball eventually comes back in from Sulemana and THB and KWP get each other’s way and Palace clear it.  The attacking intensity has been there today for more or less the first time this season.  Multiple players involved in build-ups and looking to be positive.

Half time and that was decent.  No complaints and thoughts turn to the second half and I just hope that we keep this eleven on the pitch for as long as possible as virtually any substitution is going to weaken things, especially in midfield where Downes and Big Les have been superb and the reason why Palace have looked disjointed.  Eze and Sarr have been anonymous and Mateta’s strength and ability to turn past defenders has really been the only threat.

We try and get on the front foot in the second half and then Sulamana gives the ball away in embarrassing fashion, allowing Sarr to sprint forward and find Eze on the left, but he drags his shot into the side netting.  Sarr has come to life and Clyne finds some space and plays a lovely ball in behind to pick up Sarr’s run but Stephens slides in to execute a perfect tackle to win the ball and not give away a penalty despite Sarr beating the ground in frustration. Brilliant tackle.

Subs are going to be key in the second half and Glasner blinks first with a triple sub, which includes Nketiah coming on for Mateta, which should on the face of it, be a good thing for us.  We then give ourselves some work to do and give the Palace sub a chance, as a terrible back passed by Bednarek is short and Ramsdale has to come flying out at the feet of Nketiah and gets trodden on for his efforts as the ball deflects away for a corner.  Another Palace break and Downes hauls down Eze at the third attempts about thirty yards out and picks up a yellow card and a two-game ban for ten yellows.  Shit.  Of more immediate concern is the free kick but Eze is having a beast of a game and launches it high into the Chapel.

Twenty to go and Big Les is limping and Aribo is on, and the difference is alarming as Joe fails to get to the pace of the game at all and we now look under more pressure.  Manning goes down injured ten minutes later and Welington is on and Juric removes the pace of Sulemana to bring Dibling on and move Fernandes to the left.  The removal of Sulemana sems to bring more pressure as Palace now have no threat in behind to worry about. 

In truth though, despite having more possession now, Palace don’t really look a threat and I’m looking to the side to see how many minutes are to be added as we reach two minutes to go.  There’s a collective gasp as ‘8’ is displayed but to be fair, we’ve been wasting time for thirty minutes so I’m not shocked by that number.

So, ten minutes total left to be played and Ivan feels to need to make more changes. Tall Paul has hit the deck and needs to go off and he has replaced with Cameron Archer but the other one just gives me the shits as Flynn Downes, who has been far and away our best player and the reason why we have looked defensively solid, is going off to re-replaced by the worst defender in the squad, Yuki Sugawara. There then follows a few seconds of carnage as Yuki tries to explain to everybody where they’re supposed to be and the upshot is that Fernandes has dropped back into midfield and Yuki is on the left wing because… I don’t fucking know why.

It takes all of three minutes. Lerma launches in a long throw from our right and THB heads up in the air and then wins the second challenge to head it back to Lerma.  No one really closes him down and he crosses it in and substitute Franca has got himself free to flick a header inside Ramsdale‘s near post.  Fucks sake.  My first instinct was that he scored from exactly the area where Downes would’ve been defending.

Now it’s just a case of whether we’ll lose or not and Dibling gives the ball away in the right back area and Palace work across the top of the box and Nketiah turns and smashes a shot narrowly over the bar. Fucking hell that looked a lot closer than it actually was.  Saints are still trying to win it and there’s one long or throw from THB which is headed away and that’s the end of it.

Final whistle and a point at home. Fucking annoying that it isn’t three, but we would all have taken a point, probably even at half-time. There was a lot that was good about the performance today with Juric employing common sense when picking his team and doing the obvious , namely picking two central midfielders who can both run, tackle and drive the team forward. It was also balanced with KWP on the right and Manning on the left and the returning Jack Stephens gave us the back three from the playoffs from last year so everyone knew what they were doing.  Oh yes, and we had a striker.  

Consequently, we started well and after the narrow escape with Mateta hitting the bar after two minutes, we were a better side for the vast majority of the first half, causing Palace constant problems and eventually taking the lead with Tall Paul’s header. That’s why you pick a striker.  The second half and the fact that it’s now 25 points lost from winning positions, are  illustrations of the fact that even if we get the starting XI more or less right, the substitutes will always kill it and so we should make as few as possible.  Big Les had to come off but his replacement Joe Aribo didn’t get to the pace of the game at all and was a passenger lumbering around in midfield. Suddenly the snap and the pace of the midfield was not quite there with Flynn Downes left to do it on his own. Welington for Manning didn’t make things any weaker but taking Sulemana off for Dibling was a strange one because it took away an outlet and with no pace up front, Palace could step up and also, Tyler does not suit a team trying to play quickly on the break.  Cameron Archer for Tall Paul had to happen because Paul was knackered, but I’m really struggling with the substitution of Downes. 

Flynn was having a great game and he’s banned for the next two games as he’s got ten yellows, and he was still standing up and doing his job so did he really need to come off?  Sugawara coming on and swapping players about and what do you know, an unmarked player in the middle, 1-1.  Juric still doesn’t seem to get that we need runners / tacklers in midfield and he left us for twelve minutes with the pairing of the non-running, tracking or tackling Arrbo and Fernandes, whose strengths certainly lie elsewhere. The area that Downes had been defending on set pieces, just in front of the front post was where the equaliser came from because it was someone else’s job after he went off. In the post-match press conference Juric said that Downes had to come off because of injury.  We’ve got no way of knowing of course but I’m not convinced.  What exactly was he saving him for?

He's Back.  Briefly

Apart from Flynn, who gave the kind of performance that we were hoping he would produce every week when we signed him, there were also excellent contributions from all of the back three with Jack Stephens being the standout. The challenge for Jack will be putting together a run of form to keep him in the side because that’s always been his problem in the past. Capable of the odd good game but never really capable of stringing a run of games together. Bednarek had a couple of dodgy moments on his first game back but was very combative with Mateta and THB was solid also, though he will probably think he should’ve done better with the initial header before Palace scored.  KWP had an excellent game on the right hand side, digging in strongly defensively and driving forward well. We are certainly going to miss him when he goes. Big Les in midfield had an excellent game and seemed to feed off the energy of having Downes next to him.  He won’t make it at Chelsea of course because it’s fairly impossible to do so when you’re competing for a place in a midfield that has two £100 million players and a £50 million player.  I expect to see Big Les at another Premier League club next season and Palace would actually be a good destination for him.

I was talking about doing the obvious thing in relation to the midfield and another obvious obvious thing was playing Tall Paul up front. Yes, he looks clumsy at times and looks like the brain is not sending the signals quickly enough to his feet, but say what you like, it’s four goals in nine games for the big man now which is more than Adam Armstrong has ever scored in a Premier League season and is a very impressive statistic when playing up top on your own in a team as bad as us.

Having had a whole load of time since the last game, the next one away at Spurs comes round very quickly on Sunday. With Wolves playing at Ipswich on Saturday, we could well be mathematically relegated on Sunday if we lose. Hopefully we can take the positives from today into the rest of the season and hopefully Juric won’t deviate too much from the tactics and the team that played today. I expect he will though.

Up the fucking Saints.

Premier League Match 29 - Southampton 1 Wolves 2

 

32 - the Number of Points we need from 9 games

If Saints have any realistic fear of being the worst Premier League team of all time, then they need to get to 12 points from the 9 that they are currently on.  Just the one more win and we will never have a better chance than today, against Wolves.  Of the seventeen teams in the Premier League that are ringfenced by PSR, Wolves are comfortably the worst, residing as they do in 17th place, ten points behind West Ham in 16th and five clear of the team occupying 18th, which of course is the last relegation place. After this game, we have Leicester to play away from home, which is winnable, but this is the game if we want to save our fans from the ignominy of supporting a team that is worse that one with Robbie Savage in it.

The other significant thing about this game is that if we lose it, then Wolves will be 17 points ahead of us and so automatic relegation will come around pretty quickly with that kind of gap and only nine games left after today. We all know it’s going to happen at some point, but it would be good to delay the inevitable as long as possible.

Or would it? Maybe once relegation is confirmed we can start planning in earnest for next season. Maybe we can get answers out of all of the players as to whether they want to be part of the rebuild in the Championship next season or whether they want to move on. I personally will never not find it strange that having been part of a shit Premier League campaign that has ended up with your team getting relegated, you feel you have the entitlement to be a Premier League player.  There is only really Aaron Ramsdale out of our squad who could legitimately make a case for himself.  Others will move on of course and I’d be very surprised if we have any of Aaron, KWP, THB or Tyler Dibling in our ranks at the start of next season. The rebuild is of course the remit of Johannes Spors, our new technical director, appointed around a month ago and he gave his first interview this week and came across as very confident in his own ability and made it abundantly clear that he would be in charge of all football related matters, including the appointment of managers and recruiting of players. As is always the case with these types of appointments, they always sound great before they have started and the merits or otherwise of the person in question can only be judged further down the line he did make it abundantly clear however that we almost expect to be promoted next season. Good start.

The future of Ivan Juric will be a talking point from now until either the end of the season or until he gets sacked. Personally, I find it hard to imagine him staying past the point of relegation being confirmed but you never know. Last week he picked a team that didn’t get battered at Anfield but this week is a different assignment because we have to win this game against Wolves, so playing without a striker is not really an option in my book playing with a striker would of course mean one less body in midfield which means the weaknesses of Will Smallbone, who will doubtless be selected, are more likely to be exposed.

Wolves chances of exposing anything in our defence have been weakened by the absence of Matheus Cunha, who is the only player raising their squad above the levels of the three crap teams who will ultimately get relegated. His ability has put him firmly in the bracket of someone who could play for a Champions League level club. His ability to lose his shit and get sent off has however put him in the bracket of being a complete fucking liability. His second red card of the season, earned a few weeks ago against Bournemouth, for a punch, a kick and then a head-butt at a Bournemouth player, means he won’t be bothering us this afternoon.  Wolves still have threats of course but these are severely diminished without the main man.

Wolves did look to be serious contenders for relegation earlier on in the season under Gary O’Neil, and in fact got their first win of the season against us, thanks in the main to two absolutely shambolic VAR decisions. Ryan Manning‘s goal was disallowed for an arbitrary 50-50 challenge which could’ve been given either way, after the decision on the pitch had gone in our favour.  We all know that a decision overturn doesn’t often happen and the on field decision usually carries a lot of weight, like it did half an hour later when two Wolves fouls in the buildup were not given before Cunha smashed one in the top corner from thirty yards. 

The fact that they are not in the relegation shake up is down to Cunha and their new manager bounce which they got when they sacked O’Neil and appointed Vitor Pereira. One of the first things that Pereira did when he joined was to strip Mario Lemina of the captaincy. You remember him, old #TonicLikeLemonade, who in his time at Saints was much more concerned with his social media than with actually putting any effort in. A horrific example of the modern footballer. #TonicLikeWarmPiss was an occasional hashtag I liked to use.

All eyes on the team news to see if Ivan perseveres with the back four that we had last week to reasonably decent effect at Liverpool… and of course he doesn’t. Wanker.  Looks like it’s a back five again and there’s no striker on the pitch. What’s the fucking point of this guy?  What’s the fucking point in turning up to watch this shit? And it will be shit, almost certainly, but the annoying thing about being a committed football fan is that there’s always just this off chance that it might work despite all logic screaming at you that it is not going to happen. For fuck‘s sake.  Smallbone is injured again and Bednarek hasn’t recovered from his concussion – maybe he’ll wake up thinking he’s Paolo Maldini.

It looks like Matty Fernandes is playing as a false nine and he drops into midfield to start the first move and ends up with the ball on the wing.  He plays it into Sugawara doing what he does best, which is attacking and he fires it over from the byline low, and Sulemana has a tap in but plays a fucking air shot, and so the ball bounces off his standing leg and goes away from the open goal, which is six yards in front of him.

Unperturbed Saints to keep attacking with Big Les driving into the penalty area before flicking it out to Sulemana on the left and his low cross into the box deflects out as far as Aribo who sends up a fucking balloon, high into the Northam.

Wolves have been crap so far, but they get a bit possession in our half for the first time with Doherty passing the ball out wide to Bellegarde, who under no pressure whatsoever from Manning, slings in across and Strand Larson is completely free ahead of the dozing ABK and flicks a header past Ramsdale who is wrong footed, and that’s 1-0 from their first visit into our half.  Hilarious.

The rest of the first half is wank.  There is no fight to get back in it and it highlights the glaringly fucking obvious problem of not having a striker on the pitch, as Fernandes comes deep to try and pick the ball up and then realises that he’s actually the farthest forward and so has to try and hang onto it until he inevitably loses it with neither Dibling nor Sulemana making a run to help him out.  Ivan waves his arms about but yet again, it’s fucking shit.

Having shown some promising attacking at the start of the half, Sugawara has to do some defending late on and he’s predictably shite, gazing up at the sky with no idea where anything is, whilst Ait-Nouri has seen where the ball has landed and goes forward before cracking a shot into the side netting.

Make Others Look Bad By Putting Effort In, Get Substituted

Half time in the latest Juric masterclass and let’s see what the inevitable halftime substitution is.  As the players come out there is the unmistakeable figure of Tall Paul waiting to come on, so Juric is basically admitting that he fucked it up with the original team selection yet again and now realises that we do actually need a striker on the pitch after all.  Unbelievably, the player he has chosen to take off is Fernandes, who has probably been the best of a rotten bunch in the first half and there is a very audible and prolonged “you don’t know what you’re doing“, raining down from the Northam. The second half starts, and Ramsdale pumps a ball up the middle towards Tall Paul, who doesn’t jump, and he’s beaten easily in the air. The ball is flicked on couple of passes and Strand Larson picks it up on the edge of the box and drills it through THB‘s legs and it flicks off him and goes right into the corner past Ramsdale. Once again, it’s so shit and yet another simple goal.  There are people still returning from the concourse after halftime and quite a few are just turning round and going straight downstairs again because having another pint of beer, having a piss or going home are all looking like more attractive options than watching this shit.

Having not covered himself in glory with the second Wolves goal, Tall Paul then gets involved where he should, and holds the ball up before flicking it away to Dibling on the right and the youngster seems to have come alive as he drives forward and puts a nicely weighted ball in front of Sugawara, who smashes it  and Sa is forced to make a decent save and tips it over the bar.  The comeback is on! In comes the corner from Manning and Tall Paul rises at the back post and heads it goalwards and a combination of Sa and the post keeps it out.  Two efforts on goal will probably make the end of season highlights DVD.

The Wolves central defenders had a free ride in the first half with no one pressing them and they still managed to look shit when they were knocking the ball around and they look even more shit when pressed, even when it’s the very slow Tall Paul press, lumbering around after them but the amiable giant gets a foot in which leads to Sulemana playing it through to Dibling, who takes on a couple of players on the edge of the box before his shot is blocked away for another corner. Manning swings in again and Dibling gets himself free about six yards out, but heading is not the strongest part of his game and it flies over the bar.

Archer is on for Sugawara, because what we need on the pitch is a player who really doesn’t give a shit.  After passing up these opportunities it was obvious that Wolves would get another one and they do as Les tries to play a ball into Archer who really does not look interested in the slightest and as a result, a defender walks in front of him and takes the ball. Wolves build down the left and Gomes ends up with a free shot from the edge of the box which he places wide.

With KWP now switched to the left, he picks up the ball and sets off on a diagonal run across the box and thinks about shooting abouthe same number of times he’s thought about signing a contract extension and true to form, he doesn’t do it and eventually loses the ball which allows Wolves to break quickly and that’s far too quick for Joe Aribo, who is towing not only a caravan, but also a full sized trailer and an articulated lorry.  Luckily for us, they make a complete bollocks of it and Sarabia tries to go round Ramsdale and that’s never happening and we get away with it.

Twenty to go and Tall Paul tries again, holding the ball up and spinning it out to Dibling on the right hand side and he attacks the box, hits it with his left foot and it flies past Sa and bounces out off the post and there is Tall Paul to run in the rebound.  That happens in the first half and we have no striker following in.

So what of the last twenty.  We do fuck all in the first ten as all the Wolves players simultaneously get cramp and go down. Isn’t that strange?  Downes comes on for Les and Gronbaek for Sulemana.  It’s amazing that Sulemana doesn’t fall on his arse as he walks off as that’s been more or less his total contribution today.  Downes adds some energy and Gronbaek adds some lightweight not touching the ball, and we’ve time for one more tactical masterstroke on 92 with Aribo coming off for Jack Stephens.  More abuse from the Northam as a defender comes on but what the fuck, he’s going up front.  Full time and Wolves celebrate like they’ve just stayed up. As if you were ever going to go down anyway lads, for fuck‘s sake.

Despite some spirit being shown in parts of the second half, overall, that was fucking dogshit again. A diabolical starting XI with no striker, and an admission at a half-time with a substitution that tells that he got it completely wrong again. Taking off our best and hardest working midfield player and putting on an actual striker was a classic, and totally deserving of the “you don’t know what you’re doing” raining down from the crowd. Fernandes was playing as the furthest forward of our midfield players so in taking him off, Juric was kind of hinting that Fernandes was the problem, which he clearly fucking wasn’t.  Playing a false 9 with no one running ahead of the ball was the problem, so blame the wingers or blame yourself.  The whole idea of a false 9 is to draw the centre backs out to deal with him but the Wolves defenders just stayed where they were as there was no point in following Fernandes into our half as he had no one to pass it forward to.

One more Defender Next Week I Feel

So let’s talk about the first half, which was for 4-6-0 in possession and 5-5-0 out of possession. All this against a team that is 17th in the League and quite frankly, shit. This Wolves team would not be staying up in any season in the past 20 years, apart from the last two. So, having set up like we were playing Real Madrid, we knocked the ball around a bit and looked relatively sharp on the ball and the first time Wolves got the ball, they scored when two crosses came in under no pressure whatsoever and from the second of those, Strand Larson had a free head because ABK had dozed off. For the rest of the first half we predictably did nothing and it was absolutely fucking dreadful and then the second goal straight away killed the game.

The half-time change saw Tall Paul came on and even having a striker on the pitch as limited as him, makes the team look a lot better because the central defenders are occupied and at least we have someone to play the ball forward to. Who would’ve thought it. Our goal came from Paul picking up the ball spreading it wide and then following in the shot which bounced back to him off a post.  Three goals he has this season, two of them from following in shots.  A striker with a striker’s instinct is a good idea.  It was a bit like the interesting development in the last ten minutes as well, when Flynn Downs came on and all of a sudden we had someone who could run in midfield and looked like something resembling a functioning team again. Who would’ve thought it?

If the final substitution of Ivan Juric’s Saints career is to bring Jack Stephens on up front then that would be a fitting epitaph. He really didn’t look overly impressed with being asked to chase hopeful long balls, pumped forward for a few minutes at the end.

I want Juric gone now. We are now 17 points behind Wolves with nine games left so it’s all over by the shouting so there is absolutely no point in Juric still being here. The bloke is absolutely fucking clueless, never seems to learn and there is just no point in him sticking out the place a moment longer.  Two and a half weeks until the next game – get it done.  The language being used around the club has changed with regards to the relegation “battle” that we are in.  Spors said during the week that he was purely talking about playing in the Championship and in his post-match interview today, Juric categorically said that we will be relegated. No shit Sherlock.

Once again there were some half decent performances out of there by some players with Dibling (second half) and THB probably being the standouts. Sugawara actually wasn’t that bad either but it’s all relative.   There was some awful shite as well with Joe Aribo being particularly off the pace and Kamaldeen Sulemana doing a passable impression of someone playing in a pair of roller skates.  It apparently was Aribo’s 100^th game for Saints today and in some ways that’s an achievement but in others it’s symbolic of how far we’ve fallen.  In recent times in the Premier League we’ve had James Ward-Prowse, Oriol Romeu, Romeo Lavia and Pierre Hojbjerg in Aribo’s position and they are light years ahead of him.  Go back further and you find Steven Davis, Victor Wanyama, Morgan Schneiderlin and even the like of Jordy Clasie.  It shows how far we’ve plummeted. 

It's a gloriously long two weeks and three days before the next game, which is Palace at home.  With it being a home game it certainly promises to be a toxic one in the ground unless there is someone else in charge by then, as opposed to Mr Five-Five-Zero but when have Sports Republic ever done the obvious thing.

Up the Fucking Johannes Spors Saints Rebuild..